13 College Place North, Belfast, County Antrim, BT1 6BE

No. 13 College Place North is a terraced two-storey red brick house built around 1840, constructed as one of a pair of similar houses. It is irregular on plan, faces south, and sits in a cul-de-sac to the north of College Square North in Belfast city centre.

The roof is covered in natural slate with black clay ridge tiles, and there is a profiled brick chimneystack with terracotta pots on the west party wall, which is shared with the neighbouring No. 15. Cast-iron guttering on iron brackets runs along the brick eaves course, with a cast-iron downpipe below. The walls are of red brick laid in Flemish bond with a painted rendered plinth course. Window openings have gauged brick flat arches, painted sandstone sills, rendered surrounds, and replacement timber casement windows. The front elevation is two windows wide. To the left is a square-headed door opening with a rendered surround, a replacement timber panelled door, and a rectangular overlight above; the door opens directly onto the pavement. The west side elevation is abutted by the adjoining No. 15, and the east side elevation by No. 11. The rear elevation was not inspected.

Although the pair of houses has been compromised by recent alterations, No. 13 remains part of a 19th-century terrace and retains something of its original character. It represents what has been described as a near-textbook example of second- and third-rate building of a type that is becoming increasingly rare in Belfast.

In terms of its setting, No. 13 forms part of a terrace of two similar houses that returns onto the principal section of College Place North, which itself comprises a terrace of four further houses lining the northwest side of College Place North at the entrance to an industrial yard.

The house was part of a wider terrace — Nos. 3 to 13 College Place North — that had been constructed by the time of the second edition Belfast Ordnance Survey map of 1858. The first edition map of 1832–33 shows the site as vacant, confirming the terrace was built in the intervening years, most likely around 1840–50. At that time, development in this part of Belfast was being driven by population growth in the Victorian period and by the opening of the Royal Belfast Academical Institution in 1814. The terraced streets to the west of Belfast's centre were constructed rapidly as the area surrounding College Square became an increasingly fashionable residential district. A Historic Buildings Branch report of 1992 suggests that College Place North was erected as mews housing for servants working in the larger houses fronting onto College Square. It has also been recorded that the terrace was once closed off by a brick wall at the Killen Street end, and that an opposing terrace on the southwest side, now demolished, once stood opposite. The terrace remains in the shadow of Neill's factory, which was originally constructed during the Famine period and remodelled in the 1880s by James Neill.

Nos. 11 and 13 are two-storey dwellings but possess a slightly lower storey height than their neighbours at Nos. 3–9. Writing in 1993 at the time of a restoration project, Patton described Nos. 3–9 as an obtuse-angled terrace of two-storey red brick houses with some surviving three-lobe fanlights over four-panel doors in simple doorcases, and noted that Nos. 11–13 were very similar but of lower storey height. Charles Brett, writing in 1985, described the row as enchanting little two-storey mid-Georgian houses that could not be earlier than 1832, calling them real jewels with glazing bars all intact; however, this Georgian attribution is considered too early, as the terrace was almost certainly built around 1840–50 and was not yet present on the 1832–33 Ordnance Survey map.

In 1860, Griffith's Valuation recorded that Nos. 3–13 College Place North were owned by Thomas McCammon, a tanner, leather merchant, and flour miller who operated from a tannery on King Street directly to the north, and who was also the lessor of a number of other dwellings in the area. At that time No. 13 was occupied by a John Kennedy, and the dwelling was valued at £5 — significantly lower than the adjoining terrace. Kennedy was still recorded at the address in 1880, employed as a linen lapper in a local factory. By 1900 he had vacated, and a Francis Gordon was recorded as occupant. The Belfast Revaluation of 1900 noted that ownership of the terrace had by then passed to Samuel Gibson, a druggist and general merchant with properties on King Street. The revaluation described No. 13 as a two-storey dwelling of approximately 50 years old, fitted with gas installations and containing three inhabited rooms including sitting rooms and bedrooms but excluding the kitchen. The value was slightly increased to £5 10s, with occupant Francis Gordon paying a weekly rent of 3 shillings and 8 pence. The 1901 Census records Gordon, aged 48 and Presbyterian, as a stone merchant, living with his wife Margaret, aged 40, a weaver. The census building return described their house as a second-class dwelling with four inhabited rooms.

No. 13 fell vacant in 1908 and was sporadically occupied over the following decade. In 1910 a plasterer named William Carr became tenant, followed in 1911 by an upholsterer, John Magee, and his family, who were recorded in that year's census but moved out shortly afterwards. In 1918 a carter named J. Jordan became occupant, though the Annual Revisions continued to record Francis Gordon as tenant despite his having left the property by 1907. By 1935, the Kelly family had come into possession of No. 13, and the First General Revaluation of Property in Northern Ireland in that year revalued the house at £7 5s. The terrace escaped the destruction inflicted on central Belfast during the 1941 Blitz. Under the Second General Revaluation, which began in 1956, No. 13 was occupied by a Mr. or Mrs. H. W. Kelly, and by the time the revaluation concluded in 1972 the value of the site stood at £8 10s.

The entire terrace was listed in 1977 on the grounds that it represented a rare surviving example of two-storey early-19th-century housing in the area. In the period immediately following listing, the group of mid-19th-century dwellings fell into disrepair through neglect and vandalism, and by the 1990s over half of the houses lay vacant. In 1986–87 James Neill's original Victorian mill was demolished and replaced with the current structure; Neill's Mill subsequently requested the delisting of College Place North in 1992 with the intention of demolishing the terraces and incorporating the site into the factory. The request was rejected, and a renovation project was carried out on Nos. 3–13 College Place North, resulting in the restoration of the original character of the terrace.